Remember the Seatbelt Interlock?

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Every now and then someone mentions having had a 1974 year vehicle. That always reminds me of the seatbelt interlock which, along with ugly 5 MPH bumpers, was introduced that year. The interlock was so unpopular that it was elimianted for 1975.

I worked on a car that had this relay with a button under the hood. Being the inquistive sort, I had to know... So I read the manual, and found out that the car came with seatbelt interlocks, which I had never heard of before that. This feature was disabled so the relay no longer had any function, or so I though...

Years later, I was helping a mechanic do a a side job. He had spent 15 minutes or so trying to figure it out, when I saw it, the little relay with the button on it. I pushed it and told him to try the ignition. The car fired on the first crank.

Somehow, the disabled feature had re-enabled itself, probably from a bad connection to whatever jumped it out, but upon telling the owner what the problem was, she said that it would not be necessary to fix it, as she always buckled up anyway, but AFTER starting the car. Did not start, so she had never put her belt on...

I always thought it was a good idea, and made far more sense than seatbelt chimes and passive or motorized belts.
 
One "fix" was to buckle the belts in place then sit on top of them. This must not have been very comfortable.

Look at an MG wiring diagram and the "for export only" interlock is crudely spliced in. Just a couple more Lucas bullet connectors to go to pot...
 
OK, I'll confess- once bought a brand new 1974 Pinto station wagon with that feature. I used to refer to it as that "#@%&*! government-regulated S*O*_!" Then one day I looked under the front seats, & there was a wire with a plastic connector in the middle, it ran from the floor up to the seat bottom. I unplugged the connector, and *Presto*! It would start whether the seat belt was buckled or not.

Now kids, don't try this at home. I was young & foolish at the time, and to this day have to live with the terrible guilt of my deed- plus live in constant fear of the seat-belt police!
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quote:

Originally posted by Stuart Hughes:
OK, I'll confess- once bought a brand new 1974 Pinto station wagon . . . Now kids, don't try this at home. I was young & foolish at the time, and to this day have to live with the terrible guilt of my deed

Yeah, what was scarier than a Pinto? Couldn't, wouldn't accelerate faster than a Schwinn with a nine-year old aboard and let's not forget that infamous exploding gas tank.

So, the belts were for keeping the barbecue in place? Trussed chicken?
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Served with a plate of Pittsburg Hot Links?

From the November 1997 Issue of Texas Monthly...
Meat Feat
Stubby, crunchy, mushy, lovely: East Texas hot links turn one hundred.

by John Morthland

"THEY DON’T TRAVEL WELL, so they’re seldom seen outside East Texas. They’re pale, stubby grease bombs about the size of a thumb; cooked down, they darken, turning crunchy outside and mushy inside. Alone, they taste plain, not nearly as fiery as their name implies, but when doused with the thin, Tabasco-like hot sauce preferred by locals, they suddenly burst with rich flavor and a lovely smell.

East Texas hot links, now celebrating their one hundredth anniversary, are perhaps that region’s sole contribution to Lone Star cuisine. Pittsburg butcher Charlie Hasselbach first made them in 1897 as raw, take-home meats, then began cooking them for sale in 1918. Pittsburg is still the mecca for devotees of the all-beef morsels: It is home, for example, to Gene Warrick’s Pittsburg Hot Link Packers and the Pittsburg Hot Links Restaurant. Warrick’s plant makes Pittsburg Hot Sauce and several other links."

Ya, thumbs
 
I had a friend who would lift himself off of the seat in order to start his '74 Firebird. Also, if I remember correctly, if you were carrying anything remotely heavy in the front passenger seat, you either had to "buckle it in" or start the car THEN put your cargo in the seat.
 
I remember it well in my 74 Torino. I also remember how easy it was to disable it - just pull the trim off at the bottom of the B-pillar and disconnect the wire. Not that I ever drove without my seatbelt, I just didn't want some silly-aas feature on my car to remind me, and I certainly didn't need the aggravation it caused.
 
on every car i own i disable the seatbelt safety warning. usually its just a wire co0mming off the seatbelt lock which i unplug. this is because i dont wear a seatbelt. i know its a bad habit and i have no real excuse for not wearing one but its just how i am.
 
Yup, the Pinto should have been a good little station wagon, but it had its problems. One of the early 2.3 L 4 cyls, mine '74 had a 4-sp MTx & only got around 20-23 mpg. Handling was poor, etc.

I'm normally a very unfussy eater, & like almost everything. But I've never cared for those Pittsburg hot links! IMO, "Grease Bomb" is exactly right.
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Too bad, I live only 20 miles away. My youngest brother loves 'em, cover with Tobasco & get outta his way.
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I disconnected it for my (at the time) girl friend in her AMC hornet. She always wore her seat belt anyway ..but it was the package in the seat deal. Anyway ..I just unplugged the wire like I had done on many other cars. She felt guilty about it for some reason and asked me to hook it back up about 6 or so months later. The car would no longer start. You had to use the interlock release button (mentioned earlier). So, I unhooked it again.

She actually paid to get it fixed and apparently disconnecting it overloaded something (?), rendering it inoperable.

This was one of my first lessons in doing someone a favor.
 
The only time that feature was a bother was in moving the car around the driveway.

Doesn't everyone have the belt buckled, seat and mirror adjusted (etc) before starting?
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quote:

Originally posted by Master ACiD:
on every car i own i disable the seatbelt safety warning. usually its just a wire co0mming off the seatbelt lock which i unplug. this is because i dont wear a seatbelt. i know its a bad habit and i have no real excuse for not wearing one but its just how i am.

I do the same thing, but for different reasons. I like to start it right away and let it idle for a few seconds while I put the belt on, and I don't need an annoying beep while I'm doing it. I also don't need it yelling at me while if I'm relocating my parking spot 10 feet. I wouldn't actually drive without a seatbelt though, and I'd be dead once already if I didn't wear one.

Some newer vehicles must have complicated seatbelt wiring though. I had to take my dash apart and rip the little beep-maker off the board in the instrument cluster on my Mazda3; I couldn't figure out a way to wire it to think that the belt was plugged in, like on every other car I've tried. With the automatic headlights, I don't think I'll leave the lights on, so the beep isn't needed anyway.
 
Your post reminded me of another feature. Remember ten years later they made cars that talked to you?... "You're-door-is-a-jar"

I was working at Chrysler at the time. A lot of engineers got their hands on the foreign-speaking units to put in their cars.
 
quote:

Originally posted by Kestas:
Your post reminded me of another feature. Remember ten years later they made cars that talked to you?... "You're-door-is-a-jar"

I was working at Chrysler at the time. A lot of engineers got their hands on the foreign-speaking units to put in their cars.


The Maxima had this feature. "Fuel is Low" "Door is ajar" (only in America does this make sense)
 
quote:

Originally posted by Master ACiD:
on every car i own i disable the seatbelt safety warning. usually its just a wire co0mming off the seatbelt lock which i unplug. this is because i dont wear a seatbelt. i know its a bad habit and i have no real excuse for not wearing one but its just how i am.

Just keep in mind that the odds are heavily stacked against you if you end up in an accident. For every story where someone says "So and so was only able to escape the burning wreck because they weren't wearing a seatbelt" there are a hundred others where not wearing the belt would have made things much worse.
 
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